How Good is Your Memory?

The Non-volatile Systems Laboratory was the first CS research group to systematically measure and publish data about flash memory performance and reliability. Deeply understanding how flash memory behaves under stress, when power fails, and when it is the target of hackers, lets designers build better SSDs.

We measured and show how to exploit systematic variation in flash memory performance.

We recovered “deleted” data from SSDs and showed that SSDs sometimes lie about whether data has been securely deleted.

The Coast Guard asked our help in verifying that their SSDs did, in fact erase data reliably.

We evaluated flash memory’s suitability for use on spacecraft.

Our flash fingerprinting technique allow a system to uniquely identify a particular flash chip to prevent fraud and tampering.

We measured flash reliability with unreliable power supplies, a key concern as flash becomes more ubiquitous in the Internet of Things.